


Here is Where You'll Always Find Me

by jdjunkie



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Apocafic, Ascension, Grief, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-18
Updated: 2013-04-18
Packaged: 2017-12-08 20:20:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/765587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jdjunkie/pseuds/jdjunkie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is no home and there is no normality any more.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Here is Where You'll Always Find Me

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Joy That You Find Here You've Borrowed](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16697) by [Paian](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Paian/pseuds/Paian). 



> This story is set in paian's The Joy That You Found Here verse and is, in effect, a sequel. It is a Jack-focused piece, set after Daniel takes that heart-stopping action at the end of the Joy, which I won't give away in case anyone hasn't read it yet (and if not, why not?!). This story probably could stand alone, but I think you'll gain more if you've read the wonderful story that spawned it first.

Four days after Daniel ascends, Jack finds himself at the door of Daniel’s cabin without realizing how he’s got there.

  
He palms the lock, goes inside and sits down on the bed. It’s dark and he doesn’t bother to switch on the light. He drinks in the silence. After a day of endless meetings and fruitless, now pointless, attempts at communication with lost planets, to be quiet and alone is a joy.

  
As his eyes become accustomed to the darkness, Jack looks around the room. There is no indication that Daniel has ever been here, save for the sweatshirt and pants Jack folded neatly and placed four-square at the end of the bunk the day Daniel left to instigate the rising of the dead.

  
He runs his hand over the fabric. It feels cold to the touch. His fingers dig into the cotton and it is all he can do not to raise it to his face and breathe in. Surely, there is still a hint of Daniel in there somewhere? Surely his scent has seeped into the warp and weft of the material, just as Daniel has lodged himself in Jack’s soul and heart?

  
Surely.

  
Jack closes his eyes and memories of their loving here creep into his mind, and here is the one place he can allow himself to see them; the look of disbelieving delight as Daniel comes under the gentle ministrations of Jack’s hand; the way Daniel smiles, eyes full of love and longing as he fucks Jack to desperate orgasm.

  
The way they cling together as the hours and minutes count down to Daniel’s attempt at ascension. The way they can’t speak in those final moments before sleep claims them on the last night, knowing that their borrowed joy is coming to an end. For now.

  
Jack hugs the sweatshirt to his chest for a while but it offers no comfort and the memories of their lovemaking make the ache in his heart too much to bear. He rises to his feet, places the clothing back on the bunk, making sure to straighten the creases, and leaves.

 

>>>>>

 

Ten days after Daniel ascends, Jack finds himself wandering the corridors of the ship without realizing what he is doing.

  
His steps take him in an endless loop of corridors that all look and feel the same. People nod at him, some salute, and he returns their greetings in kind.

  
But each step, which he hopes will take him closer to Daniel, seems to take him farther away.

  
He can’t find Daniel in the sterile floors and walls. Can’t breathe him in through the sanitized air. Can’t feel the soft tread of his footprints as he paces and paces, haunting the halls.

  
Daniel isn’t here and Jack can’t find him.

  
But Jack keeps on walking.

 

>>>>>

 

Twenty days after Daniel ascends, Jack finds himself sitting on the floor of one of the observation decks.

  
In a matter of hours, he’ll be planet-side, checking on the early progress of the new fleet operations base. Mitchell, Teal’c and a team of marines are building temporary shelters, setting up the necessary infrastructure, working out the best way to set-up a communications hub.

  
Jack’s time on the Valhalla is coming to an end.

  
He watches the swirls and hypnotizing light patterns of hyperspace through the viewport and is lulled, just for a few seconds, into believing that this is just another day that passes for normal on just another mission. That they will complete their assigned task, pat each other on the back and head home after a job well done.

  
But there is no home and there is no normality any more.

  
Jack thinks about that for a while, then chooses not to think about it and instead holds an entire conversation with Daniel, just as if the man is sitting by his side, shoulder touching, content in their companionship. He tells him how, after Abydos, the search and rescue mission came to an end, not with a bang or a whimper, just a feeling of sad acceptance and inevitability. How he is teaching some of the young technicians to play chess – it’s absorbing and he hopes it takes their minds off the bigger picture, just for a while – and how he can still beat anyone at the game with one hand tied behind his back and his mind numbed by loss and sometimes by whisky.

  
Then Jack tells Daniel that he misses him and can he please finish raising the army of the dead because he can’t stand not being able to touch him and kiss him.

  
He rises to his feet and walks away with no real idea of where he’s going.

 

>>>>>>>

 

Seventy-one days after Daniel ascends, Jack sits at the small desk in the fleet base headquarters that is now home and opens his journal. He makes a comment about the Captain’s Log but a joke isn’t funny when there’s no one to tell it to.  
 

He could be doing this on a laptop, but Jack chooses pen and paper because that’s what Daniel would choose and this diary is for Daniel’s benefit, not his.  
 

He writes of day-to-day life at the base, and how, slowly, some sense of a new normality is creeping into their lives. Military routine has its perks, chief among them the discipline and sense of purpose it brings. He writes of the reports from Vala, whose efforts at trading and scavanging and cosmic recycling is helping boost supplies more than somewhat. She’s good at what she does. She splits her time between the HQ, the supply base and keeping an eye on her homeworld. Jack tells Daniel he’s come to love Vala’s smile and optimism. Both are rare commodities these days.  
 

Carter and Marks are immersed in finding answers to scientific questions Jack doesn’t fully understand. She’s been out there for weeks on the Hebridan survey vessel, scanning planets, gleaning what data she can. She’s located other Hebridan ships returning from their long-range trips, and is supervising their assimilation into the fleet.  
 

Jack tells Daniel that he’s worried about Carter; she’s tired, pushing herself too hard. She shrugs off his concerns, says she’ll be back within days, then she’ll rest. There’ll be plenty of time to rest.   
 

Jack writes that he’s working on a plan for an official day of mourning and remembrance, and is asking for suggestions on how best to do it. It’s time. It’s past time. The plan was to hold some kind of commemoration when SAR ended. But the nitty gritty of getting on with life has been all-consuming and in the face of the enormity of their task, it simply hasn’t been a priority.  
 

He tells Daniel he loves him. And then he can’t write any more and closes the book, running his hand over the cover.

_One day,_ he tells Daniel, _you’ll read this and bitch about every grammatical error, and I’ll smile through every second.  
_

  
One day.

 

>>>>>>

 

One hundred days after Daniel ascends, many of those who survive gather for a ceremony to mark the end of the old life and the beginning of the new.

  
The base  – and Jack’s command of it – is taking shape, decisions are being made about the renewed colonizing of the Milky Way; it feels like humanity’s time as spacegoing refugees is coming to an end.

  
A large part of the fleet has gathered in orbit around the base’s planet, the ships’ commanders deciding that the need to be here for this outweighs the security risk of so many being in the same place at the same time.

  
Mitchell takes a team of volunteers to the back-up base, just in case. Nothing is taken for granted these days.

  
As the ceremony begins, those who want to step forward, one after another, to recite a list of those they lost. Jack sets no limit on numbers of those names. Some speak for minutes, some hardly speak at all. Most are in tears.

  
Carter says nothing, but takes one pace forward and salutes smartly, chin jutting proudly, shoulders squared. She looks tired and anxious but still with that dogged determination that will see her through this. She takes solace in the certainty of science when she can’t deal with emotional fallout. Jack envies her that something to hold on to.

  
Teal’c speaks for Ry’ac and his young wife Kar’yn, for the Jaffa Nation, for Bra’tac.

  
Jack watches it all and mourns alongside what’s left of humanity.

  
He leads prayers he doesn’t believe in but offers no names of his own.

  
The one name that is so obvious to all those assembled is the one he cannot speak. Because Daniel is not lost. Daniel just isn’t here right now, although several of his robot copies are, and Jack doesn’t know how he feels about that.

  
He looks across at them, so earnest and serious. He thinks it should be more painful than it is to see them here, when they’re not his Daniel; when he can’t touch them or look in their eyes and see what he wants to see. One of the copies slides his hand into the hand of a weeping woman standing next to him. The gesture moves Jack unbearably, but it also comforts him.  
 

No. Jack’s Daniel isn’t here, but in his heart, Jack is more certain than ever that Daniel is coming back. Once he’s done what he has to do. And Jack will be here, waiting, in this new beginning.

 

 

>>>>>>

 

One hundred days after Daniel ascends, after Jack leads the grieving and remembrance, he takes himself off-duty and out of reach, except in the direst of circumstances. And really, what could be more dire than all they’ve already been through?  
 

He beams up to the Valhalla and walks purposefully through the corridors to Daniel’s cabin. He goes inside, locks the door behind him and undresses. He places his clothes in a neat pile next to Daniel’s and gets into the bunk, pulling the covers up. Turning on his side, he pulls his knees to his chest and hugs himself to get warm. He doesn’t sleep well these days. He’s hoping that being here, where he found happiness for two weeks with Daniel, and now that the memorial is over and a new life has begun, he’ll be able to let go and finally get some rest.  
 

His mind is filled with Daniel; his smile, his blue eyes, the rarely-heard rumble of his laugh. He sees him talking to gentle, perplexed, naked aliens, to the assembled courtroom of the Cor-Ai, at Triad for Skaara; so strong, and so, so beautiful.  
 

After a long while, he falls asleep, and in his dreams Daniel comes to him and takes him in his arms and holds him, and they make the sweetest and gentlest love until they both come and fall asleep, naked, in each other’s arms. They are in an endless, flower-filled meadow and the sun is shining and there is a caressing, lazy breeze enfolding them both.  
 

Jack wakes and the echoes of that breeze are still with him. He feels at peace.  
 

He sits up in the bunk and runs a hand across his face.  
 

Then he closes his eyes, borrows one more precious Daniel moment against their future happiness, and prepares for the start of the new day.

 

 

 

ends


End file.
